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Since the dawn of the e-cigarette and e-hookah, “vaping” – as they call imbibing in them instead of smoking – has occupied this gray area in terms of whether or not you are allowed to do it in enclosed public places. All that is about to change for those in Toronto who use the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission). Minutes ago, the Head of Communications for the TTC, Brad Ross, told me on Twitter that “Bylaw No. 1 will be amended later this year to prohibit it officially.”

In case you’re wondering what this “Bylaw No. 1” that Brad Ross is referring to says here’s a link. The relevant portion which will (I am guessing) be amended is:

“3.32 No person shall smoke in or on TTC property or carry a lighted cigar, cigarette, pipe, other tobacco product, or any other lighted smoking equipment or material while in or on TTC property.”

I wonder if Toronto is the first to ban it but I am trying to get this post out so I don’t have the time to research at all. Do you know of any other transit systems or public places that have banned vaping? Let me know in the comments!

Also, do you agree with this move? Or do you think that vaping should be allowed in public places? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

There is a whole bunch of news today about how the TTC has unveiled a pilot program of new signage which is supposed to make everything clearer and easier to understand because they’ll be using numbers as well as names for each of the subway and streetcar lines. What the folks at the TTC don’t seem to get is that people – especially those who aren’t from the city – is that the U shaped Yonge-University-Spadina Line is in of itself confusing to people. As I mentioned in a post in March of 2011 “Spotted: TTC Referring To Subway Lines By Color!” I think that this would end up making navigating the system way easier. Read more…

Today I was a partici-pantsless member of the 2012 Toronto No Pants Subway Ride on the TTC. This was my 3rd year in the past 4 years being a part of the fun prank which started in New York City 8 years ago and has grown internationally ever since, this was the 5th year they did it in Toronto.

We were lucky that this year we got to ride on the brand new TTC Rocket train when we got to Museum Station where we started off (still wearing our pants). As we each in turn took our pants off at prearranged intervals between stations and then departed the TTC Toronto Rocket we showed our fellow transit riders that riding the TTC pantsless in January is “The Better Way.” We then got on the next train and rode all the way to Eglinto Station where we turned around and went back south to Museum Station.

Good times were had by all for this good, clean fun. We made plenty of people smile which was the goal. A couple of people asked me what the heck was going on and my response was that I’d “forgotten my pants at home and was on my way to an important meeting I couldn’t be late for.” (I don’t think they believed me because they all just chuckled and stopped questioning it.) I even heard someone ask another partici-pantsless if we were doing a school project!

Even the media showed up for the event. CTV, CityTV, and CP24 were all there…but they all kept their pants on.

On my way to the York University Alumni Mixer last week I had to go through TTC King Station. As I walked through the station I noticed that it had all been plastered with advertising for the new “Johnnie Walker Double Black” blended scotch whisky. In case you’re wondering the whisky has been described “a pumped-up Black Label” so in the price/age list it probably comes between Black Label and Green Label. (The list from lowest price/youngest to highest/oldest is Red, Black, Green, Gold, and Blue.)

When I got to the turnstiles on my way out I noticed the contradictory message the ad related – to “Keep Walking” – whereas the TTC’s signage said that that particular turnstile was “No Entry. It giving me that chuckle was something I thought I’d share.

Have you ever seen something like this? Where an ad’s placement results in an amusing message due to its surroundings? Funnier? Let me know below in the comments!

TTC Sheppard Yonge Station: You may have been to this station before, you may not have been but chances are decent that if you live in Toronto you’ve ridden on one of the subway lines which attach to it – the Yonge-University-Spadina (YUS) Line and the less used Sheppard Line.

As you can see in the picture above when you are walking throguh the subway station you are advised by a directional sign what the escalators and stairs in front of you lead to. The folks who wrote this TTC signage decided to indicate to travelers that at the bottom of these steps can be found “Yonge Trains and Sheppard Subway.” Wait, what? What’s the difference between the two subway lines aside from the obvious answer that they service different areas of the city and one’s a north-south line while the other is an east-west?

Why is the Yonge Line referred to as having ‘trains’ and the Sheppard Line as being a ‘subway’? Is the idea to confuse commuters, people new to the city, and tourists? If so, they’re probably doing a superb job! Seems that in the City of Toronto our public transit does not only have subway lines, streetcars, buses, and the Scarborough RT cars but we also have a fifth option – trains! But hold on a second…don’t GO, VIA Rail, and the like run the trains? Aren’t trains intercity not intracity? Why the confusing descriptors TTC? Why?

The YUS and Sheppard Lines both run the same subway trains in the T1 so there is no difference there. (although the YUS Line also has the Toronto Rocket as well as the older H5s running on it, the latter of which are slated to be sold to Eko Rail of Lagos, Nigeria in the coming years.) In fact, the only difference I can think of between the two lines is that the Sheppard Line remains underground for its entire length whereas the YUS Line comes above ground for a fair portion of its route. Does that make it a train and not a subway? I have never heard or seen of it referred to as anything but a subway and this sign just seems so weird. I wonder why the TTC has chosen to compose the sign this way. It just seems odd and silly to do so as well as unnecessarily confusing.

Until I hear otherwise I am classifying this as an epic FAIL on the part of the TTC signage team. There’s bad signage which is what it is because it’s illegible or badly placed or not lit up or simply not present and then there’s this. This goes beyond being bad signage to the point of being confusing signage which works against the smooth flow of urban passenger traffic on mass transit.

If anyone knows the answer for this, I would love to hear it. I assume – or rather I hope – there must be a rational explanation for this. Then again, it is the TTC.

TTC Spadina Station Norman B. Gash House from the outside standing on Spadina Rd with Kendal Ave behind me.

This is the fifth post in my continuing Exploring Toronto series (here are the links for Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV). I was having a discussion about cool things from the ‘olden days’ with my friends Katie (@kathrynboland) and Jason (@videojey) that are still around in Toronto only disguised as run of the mill every day things and I mentioned the TTC subway entrance/exit to Spadina Station at Kendal Avenue which used to be an old house. Since Jason and Katie were not the first people I have mentioned this to who had no idea of its existence I thought it would be a good addition to the Exploring Toronto series.

That house, as I learned from the plaque they have up on the building is the “Norman B. Gash House.” Norman Gash was a lawyer Read more…

The other day I visited the TTC’s Hillcrest Yard facility in Toronto to see the mockup of the new Bombardier manufactured Flexity Outlook which will be replacing the old TTC streetcars on the streets/rails of Toronto in a couple of years.

I got to sit in the “driver’s seat” – which is a completely separate compartment from the public area. This is because there are a lot of assaults on streetcar drivers…who knew?

One of the other main features was the wider seats they had installed in the cars. If you look at the picture below you can see a wider seat with a regular seat next to it. The wider seat is 1.5 times as wide as the regular seat. I knew when I saw this seat I had to sit in it and get a picture. I sat down in it with my legs comfortably apart (not trying to keep them together as you often do on public transit, more like sitting on a couch at home) and there was still plenty of room for more of me. To be clear, I am not a small guy but I am above average in the height department – I’m 5’10 and 175lbs and these seats were – to me – more than EXTREMELY generous. According to people I spoke to from the TTC this has been one of the most requested features to be added to new public transit vehicles…and they say Canadians are skinnier than Americans as a country!

What do you think of these new streetcars? Can you barely contain yourself until 2013 when they’ll be driving around Toronto?